{The List} Terrain and terrain improvements

[Fosse]

Let's finally have navigable rivers.

[Sore Loser]

Pollution should have small effects, but shouldn't easily be removed. This way, pollution pays off on a short-term basis, but keep doing it and you end with massive smog that's nigh impossible to get rid of.

[Stefu]

Agreementos with the 'harsher environment' idea, but if it's implemented, better make sure that the player is guaranteed at least a stretch of 'nice' environment, with room for 4-5 cities - otherwise it'll easily get really friggin' annoying.

[Nikolai]

Majorly updated with ideas from this thread and Fosse's links.

[Jamski]

I'd like to see a possiblity to put more than one citizen on a tile in the city window. The second worker would produce one less of each resource than the first worker, the third one less again...

This would make cities bigger than size 20 worth having, or if a city has one GREAT tile, and a load of poor tiles, then the city can concentrate its workforce in one place.

-Jam

[Nikolai]

Great idea! how much less do you think the second, third etc. shuld produce? And there should be a limit, don't you think? What about 3 workers per tile, 1st 100%, 2nd 66% and 3rd 33%? Or possible 4(75%. 50%. 25%)?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Sore Loser
Pollution should have small effects, but shouldn't easily be removed. This way, pollution pays off on a short-term basis, but keep doing it and you end with massive smog that's nigh impossible to get rid of.

Let me restate the premise: pollution forces the player (or is intended to force the player) to choose between industrialization and nonindustrialization.

WHOA! WTF?!

Why should this be a viable strategic option at all? It makes no sense historically, and it makes no sense from a gameplay POV. Industrialization is not meant to be a choice, it's meant to be something you have to do to survive!.

Thus, the true effect of pollution of this is purely to hinder your efforts and annoy the player. This doesn't even make the game harder, because the AI is pathetic with pollution. Pollution cannot and should not be implemented, because the whole point of pollution is way off the mark.

[alva]

Pollution cannot and should not be implemented, because the whole point of pollution is way off the mark.

Huh, no it isn't. Although I agree that pollution in civ3 is annoying, I still think it should be in Civ4.
I hope they implement it differently but I do hope it will still be in CIv4.

[hexagonian]

A nice CTP1 feature...

Have buttons that instantly maximizes city workers for food/commerce/production/science/happiness. Basically, it would make sure the minimum food/happiness requirement is met, and then automatically places worker on the correct tiles/specialist slots.

[Trifna]

ONE thing about terrain: puting tiles in an aleatory manner just doesn't give the best results. An amphasis should be put on "next to huge mountains, there's more chances to get little mountains", "next to a delta there's more chances to get better plains", "next to desert, there is less chances to see jungle", etc.

It changes a landscape AND strategy alot (strategy would include to get "this region" or "this other region"! ).

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by skywalker


Let me restate the premise: pollution forces the player (or is intended to force the player) to choose between industrialization and nonindustrialization.

WHOA! WTF?!

Why should this be a viable strategic option at all? It makes no sense historically, and it makes no sense from a gameplay POV. Industrialization is not meant to be a choice, it's meant to be something you have to do to survive!.

Thus, the true effect of pollution of this is purely to hinder your efforts and annoy the player. This doesn't even make the game harder, because the AI is pathetic with pollution. Pollution cannot and should not be implemented, because the whole point of pollution is way off the mark.

You make a good point, but there is a second possibility. It could be that pollution exists in the game for the sake of realism. In this case, to maintain the spirit of what this game is supposed to be, pollution should be expressed in some manner. But I definitely think that the current system is just tedious and cumbersome.

I'd like to see it so that pollution causes unhappiness. I think superlarge cities should be more difficult to manage. It really shouldn't be so easy to keep everyone happy. Having pollution affect this would help to create that effect.

[Lorizael]

Oh, and my previous proposal now in the correct thread.

Fort tile improvements, I'd like to see a hybrid system. In this system, tile improvements such as irrigation and mining done within your borders would be handled by a public works type system. I don't want exactly what was had in CtP, though. I'd rather a system where you would start an irrigation project for an entire city, and it would take a lot of money/shields to produce, and once completed, would require a good deal of maintainence.

However, once you get outside the land that is technically yours, and you want to build roads, rails, colonies, and forts and such, it would require the use of workers.

This way in the early game you can still have fun building up your civilization, and in the late game you don't have to worry about the swarms of workers going around to cleanup this polution or irrigate that tile.

[hexagonian]

I like that... I'd actually like to see a combination use of workers/PW if you build Tile improvements outside of your city radius (not national borders), and PW used inside those radius.

[wrylachlan]

How about a Public Works Director that works by automating workers? You could paint down roads like in Sim City, and workers would automatically start building them... or you could give a worker a direct order, and she would finish that project before going back to the Public Works Director for new instructions.

Each city could have a Public Works Submenu which would show three graphs of the maximum possible Food/Shields/Commerce if you optimized for each of those. So at a glance you can see - "The most Food I could possibly get out of this city is X, and the most shields is Y", etc. Then there would be a slider where you set the percentage priority of each of those.

When workers have no specific tasks given them directly nor any specific improvements from the Public Works Director (like roads or colonies, etc.) a worker will start upgrading the city radius based on the percentages you've chosen. If you go 50% Food 25% Shields 25% Commerce, the worker will build 2 food improvements, then one shield improvement, then 1 commerce.

This system would be flexible enough to allow you to micromanage in the early stages of the game when its most important, then forget about them later on, yet still have the ability to direct them if you want to. It would also be a lot more precise than the current automation of workers. And it preserves the ability to take slave workers to improve your civ's production.

[Kuciwalker]

You make a good point, but there is a second possibility. It could be that pollution exists in the game for the sake of realism. In this case, to maintain the spirit of what this game is supposed to be, pollution should be expressed in some manner. But I definitely think that the current system is just tedious and cumbersome.

I'd like to see it so that pollution causes unhappiness. I think superlarge cities should be more difficult to manage. It really shouldn't be so easy to keep everyone happy. Having pollution affect this would help to create that effect.

This, I like. Though it should only happen after something like Ecology or a similar tech (which should also be a critical tech, so people don't just avoid it) is discovered. Maybe it should only occur after you enter the Modern Era. It's annoying during the Industrial Era to be able to do essentially nothing about pollution. Also, pollution should not hurt production. For pollution to hurt production is incredibly stupid.

Huh, no it isn't. Although I agree that pollution in civ3 is annoying, I still think it should be in Civ4.
I hope they implement it differently but I do hope it will still be in CIv4.

Explain how it isn't. Look at my arguments first

[hexagonian]

Originally posted by skywalker

Quote:

I'd like to see it so that pollution causes unhappiness. I think superlarge cities should be more difficult to manage. It really shouldn't be so easy to keep everyone happy. Having pollution affect this would help to create that effect.

This, I like.

Hmmm, an idea that had worked its way into CTP2. I guess there is something positive there...

[Sandman]

Some more random suggestions:

The number of sides a city has facing the sea should give it a discount on the cost of city walls, and an increase in the cost of a coastal fortress.

A city with three sides facing the sea should pay 5/8 of what a fully land-locked city has to pay for city walls. A city with only one side facing the land, on a near island, should pay only 1/8.

Bring back the diagonal channel that allowed ships to pass through. Just another bizarre design change in civ3 that needs to be rectified.

Each city on the banks of a river should get +1 trade for each other city on that river.

Cities that are only one square away from the coast, and are on a river that leads to that coast should be able to build sea improvements.

There should be a 'natural harbour' type of terrain that makes sea improvements much cheaper to any city built on it and also gives extra trade.

And, of course, flexible city radii so we can build cities in cool defensive locations without having to worry about overlap.

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by wrylachlan
How about a Public Works Director that works by automating workers? You could paint down roads like in Sim City, and workers would automatically start building them... or you could give a worker a direct order, and she would finish that project before going back to the Public Works Director for new instructions.

Each city could have a Public Works Submenu which would show three graphs of the maximum possible Food/Shields/Commerce if you optimized for each of those. So at a glance you can see - "The most Food I could possibly get out of this city is X, and the most shields is Y", etc. Then there would be a slider where you set the percentage priority of each of those.

When workers have no specific tasks given them directly nor any specific improvements from the Public Works Director (like roads or colonies, etc.) a worker will start upgrading the city radius based on the percentages you've chosen. If you go 50% Food 25% Shields 25% Commerce, the worker will build 2 food improvements, then one shield improvement, then 1 commerce.

This system would be flexible enough to allow you to micromanage in the early stages of the game when its most important, then forget about them later on, yet still have the ability to direct them if you want to. It would also be a lot more precise than the current automation of workers. And it preserves the ability to take slave workers to improve your civ's production.

Hmm, I like that idea. For some reason I want the system of building up infrastructure within your borders to be handled by something other than workers. I'm not sure why, maybe just to add variety. But a system like this makes me think otherwise.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Sandman
Some more random suggestions:

The number of sides a city has facing the sea should give it a discount on the cost of city walls, and an increase in the cost of a coastal fortress.

A city with three sides facing the sea should pay 5/8 of what a fully land-locked city has to pay for city walls. A city with only one side facing the land, on a near island, should pay only 1/8.

(though the little voice in my head screams "make it optional in the editor!" )

Bring back the diagonal channel that allowed ships to pass through. Just another bizarre design change in civ3 that needs to be rectified.

Make it so that some diagonals let ships through and some don't. Also make it so that some diagonals let land units through and some don't.

Each city on the banks of a river should get +1 trade for each other city on that river.

Wow, that's a really good idea.

Cities that are only one square away from the coast, and are on a river that leads to that coast should be able to build sea improvements.

(see response to city walls)

There should be a 'natural harbour' type of terrain that makes sea improvements much cheaper to any city built on it and also gives extra trade.

*drools*

And, of course, flexible city radii so we can build cities in cool defensive locations without having to worry about overlap.

*drools some more*

[TheBirdMan]

1.9.7 (or 2.6) Canals.

It should be possible to build a canal when the knowledge and resources are in place. But to avoid it to be too crazy, limit the lenght to a few tiles starting or ending (or both) at the sea.

[TheBirdMan]

1.9.8 (or 1.9.7 if above suggestion is placed under 2.6): Shallow water type, at allows only small ships to sail there.

Why? To make it easier to defend coastal lines from massive invasions.

How to manage an invasion from sea then? Not sure, either the big ships must carry those small ships as cargo with the other units or you could allow units to "cross" that watertype using all movementpoints to advance only one tile. I am sure some has better ideas for this.

How to bombard then? Again not sure.... But you could allow bombarding units to fire up to two (or three or more) tiles away, couldn't you?! AFAIR that was possible in the old war-game The Perfect General 2.

BTW: There was another thing in that old game I loved. LOS was different for different types of land. You could only see tiles just around you in the forrest while you could see far away on plains or over sea.......

[Kuciwalker]

If you have that "shallow water", then how would the big ships get built? They couldn't leave the city.

[TheBirdMan]

Originally posted by skywalker
If you have that "shallow water", then how would the big ships get built? They couldn't leave the city.

My thought was, that it should represent either a reel low water type or water with reefs. That type of shallow water shouldn't necessarily cover the whole coastline.

Edit: Or make a canal......

[wrylachlan]

How about a loading unloading speed? Unless its in a city, boats can only load or unload a certain amount of units per turn. And certain types of ocean tiles can modify that number and or the adjacent land type - unloading onto a cliff takes forever, where unloading in a deep bay next to the plains could be faster.

Also certain units can modify that number. Like Marines unload faster than infantry. And Viking Longships unload faster than Galleys.

This would do 2 things, allow for faster ocean movement, since it will now take comparitively longer to bring the landing party to shore, you have longer to get your land defenses in order. Also the ship is a sitting duck while unloading (maybe they have a bombard or defense penalty while unloading).

Another outcome, would be that getting a beachhead city would be really important since it would allow much faster loading and unloading. You could also confer this ability on a colony, so a tactic might be to unload on the coast, and fortify that coastal tile while a worker builds a colony to make way for the invasion force.

[Kuciwalker]

That would be annoying and add MM. Given turn length, I don't think you should have any trouble unloading everything.

Oh, and beachheads are already important for those reasons. If you control a city, you can unload units directly in the city, giving them their full moves. Plus, if you have a beachhead you have a better defense for unloaded troops.

[wrylachlan]

Then perhaps a turn wait before you can unload units. IMHO anything that slows down the landing rate of attackers is good, because it would allow you to increase the movement of all seagoing vessels without unbalancing the game. This would allow a lot more fun naval combat.

P.S. Once, just once, it would be nice if you'd say something like, "I don't think that would work well, but how about X". I'm not sure what your interest in a Civ4 suggestions forum is if you don't give any suggestions?

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by wrylachlan
Then perhaps a turn wait before you can unload units. IMHO anything that slows down the landing rate of attackers is good, because it would allow you to increase the movement of all seagoing vessels without unbalancing the game. This would allow a lot more fun naval combat.

That I almost agree with. There'd be more incentive to protect your transports and more of a reason to keep a sort of Coast Guard in place.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by wrylachlan
Then perhaps a turn wait before you can unload units. IMHO anything that slows down the landing rate of attackers is good, because it would allow you to increase the movement of all seagoing vessels without unbalancing the game. This would allow a lot more fun naval combat.

P.S. Once, just once, it would be nice if you'd say something like, "I don't think that would work well, but how about X". I'm not sure what your interest in a Civ4 suggestions forum is if you don't give any suggestions?

I do make suggestions. I just more often shoot them down. I would say it is just important that they don't use [what I see as] "bad" ideas as that they do use "good" ones. I'm just better at pointing out flaws in things than I am at coming up with entirely new ideas

However, I have a question about your suggestion to slow down the unload rate - what would you do to Marines?

[wrylachlan]

Originally posted by skywalker
However, I have a question about your suggestion to slow down the unload rate - what would you do to Marines?

Make them immune to the penalty, which would help to differentiate them even more. Scouts should also be exempt from the penalty, thus it wouldn't effect your exploring islands. And workers should be exempt as well - enabling you to get a beachhead with your marines, and build a colony to allow your incoming recruits to get there faster.

I might even suggest that wheeled units, especially artillery units, get a stiffer penalty or even are unable to disembark from a standard galley without a city or colony. Maybe this penalty goes away for Modern Transports.Who knows.

[Kuciwalker]

How about give the penalty only to Wheeled units? I don't think it should apply on loading/unloading in a city, but that's me.